


Trust

by respoftw



Series: A Million Ways To Die In The Pegasus Galaxy [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Brain Damage, Episode: s02e09 Aurora, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 19:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18598315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: Dialogue prompt: "Don't Trust Me"“What’s the matter, Colonel? Don’t trust me?”“No.”





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KagekaNecavi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KagekaNecavi/gifts).



_ “What’s the matter, Colonel? Don’t trust me?” _

_ “No.” _

John knows that he’ll never regret anything else in his life the way he regrets that answer to Rodney.  He had wanted to take it back the moment he said it but he was still angry about the whole Doranda thing and the anger won out over any slight regret that he may have hurt Rodney’s feelings.  

God, he wishes that it was only Rodney’s feelings that had gotten hurt.

_ “But is it safe?” _

_ “Would I be volunteering to go if it wasn’t?” _

It was supposed to be safe.  It was supposed to be a quick in and out but, even knowing that John hadn’t wanted to take that chance.  No matter how mad he was at Rodney.

_ “Which is exactly what makes it safe enough for me to go.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “Better to have you on the outside in case something goes wrong.” _

_ “It won’t.” _

_ “But if it does…” _

_ “If it does, then what makes you think I’ll be able to do anything about it.  You don’t trust me, remember.” _

John should have fought harder.  He should have insisted that he was the one who entered the neural network.  Maybe if he had they wouldn’t be in this position.

“Colonel.”

Carson’s soft voice broke John out of his memories and into the present.  

“It’s time.”

For a second, John forgot how to breathe.  The gasp of air he inhaled when his brain finally remembered what to do nearly choked him and he coughed roughly, shaking Ronon’s hand off his shoulder when it tried to offer comfort.

He didn’t deserve comfort.  Not after the call he had made.

John stood, his knees creaking with the stiffness that came of being camped out in a chair overnight.  His feet followed Carson leadenly and he could hear Ronon and Teyla’s footsteps behind him. As Carson led them to the isolation room John prepared himself for what he was about to see.

_ “Now, look, this is what a normal E.E.G pattern looks like.  In the unlikely event that anything anomalous happens, all you have to do is enter this command to disconnect me manually.” _

Rodney looked small beneath all of the wires and tubes.  It was wrong to see him so still and quiet. The hiss of the ventilator was the loudest noise in the room and knowing that even that would soon be silent...John’s throat locked up, a burst of emotion knotting itself there until he could barely swallow around it.

This shouldn’t have happened.

It should have been him.  Rodney would have found a way to get him out of there before the Wraith ship arrived.  Rodney wouldn’t have had to resort to pulling the plug on John’s neural connection. Rodney would have pulled a miracle out of his ass and saved the damn day.  Like he did almost every damn week.

John had never told him thank you for that.

There was a lot John hadn’t told him.

“Rodney’s medical directive was very clear,” Carson said, his voice sounding obscenely loud in the quiet room.  “Life-sustaining measures should be stopped when brain activity fell below - - “

“I already signed the damn consent form, Carson.  Just do it.”

Maybe it was the fact that those were the first words John had spoken since the medics aboard the Daedalus had pronounced Rodney brain dead but Carson shut up immediately.

John watched, tears burning in his eyes, as Carson nodded at the nurse to shut off the ventilator.  The whirring hiss stopped and with it, so did the movement in Rodney’s chest. Carson gently disconnected the vent that was attached to the tube in Rodney’s mouth and John found himself wishing that he would take the tube out as well.

It made Rodney look stupid.  Slack-jawed and drooling, the tube taped to the side of his mouth and making the slant that John had fantasised about tracing with his tongue more pronounced.

It didn’t take long after that.

It took forever after that.

When the heart monitor beeped the confirmation, the room filling with a high pitched electronic whine that only rang out for a second before the nurse turned the alarm off, John actually felt his heart break. His knees buckled and he found himself kneeling on the floor, trying to breathe.  There were hands on him and voices calling his name but John couldn’t deal with any of it. The pinch of a needle when it came was a relief. Anything to get away from the reality of having to pull the plug on Rodney - his best friend - the man he loved - the man he trusted with all of him - twice in one day.

_ “This is safe, right?  If I have to manually disconnect you - - that’s safe, right?” _

_ “I trust you, John.  Even if you don’t trust me.” _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> No apologies. Sometimes I want death fic.


End file.
